Drama as Mo­gale City mayor axes Speaker and chief whip

CON­TRO­VERSY con­tin­ues to dog Mo­gale City, with on­go­ing spats be­tween the ANC and the DA/EFF coali­tion forc­ing mayor Michael Holen­stein to wield his axe on key mem­bers of his coun­cil.

On Fri­day, mo­tions of no con­fi­dence were passed against ANC Speaker Pa­trick Lipudi and ANC chief whip Sipho Dube.

DA coun­cil­lors Jac­ques Hoon and Earnest Modise are the new Speaker and chief whip re­spec­tively.

The ANC is now ac­cus­ing DA mayor Holen­stein of not pur­su­ing proper chan­nels when he con­vened the meet­ing.

The DA, in turn, is ac­cus­ing the ANC of at­tempt­ing to desta­bilise the mu­nic­i­pal­ity by re­fus­ing to con­vene meet­ings.

In terms of coun­cil rules, meet­ings have to be con­vened by the Speaker. It’s al­leged by the DA that the mayor asked the Speaker to call a meet­ing last month to pass a vote of no con­fi­dence in the Speaker and chief whip, which he re­fused to do.

He also al­legedly re­fused to con­vene an­other meet­ing to ap­prove an ap­pli­ca­tion for a fur­ther over­draft to pay mu­nic­i­pal of­fi­cials their bonuses.

The Speaker al­legedly also re­fused to con­vene a meet­ing to ap­point an act­ing mu­nic­i­pal man­ager while the in­ter­view process for a new one was un­der way.

Even­tu­ally, be­cause a num­ber of coun­cil­lors re­quested a meet­ing to be con­vened, Holen­stein called one on Fri­day, at which the mo­tion of no con­fi­dence was passed with a vote of 39. The ANC has 38 coun­cil­lors, who were not present. The ap­point­ment of an act­ing mu­nic­i­pal man­ager was also ap­proved.

The DA po­lit­i­cal head for the West Rand, Alan Fuchs, said the ANC “sim­ply could not ac­cept the demo­cratic process”.